I was eating breakfast when my sister came into the kitchen without her skin. I stopped chewing mid-crunch—cornflakes and milk dribbling from my mouth. I couldn’t stop staring. While my mother yelled and my sister defended her stance, I stared at the raw meat that made her body, the twitching muscles and tendons. White bone […]
By Invitation Only Just when you think you can hear beyondthe mowers and raw hum of trafficto the sounding in high tree tops of the hermit thrush,when you think the bougainvillea’s shades have deepened overnightto wine hues, and the scent of oleander smacksthe sultry hour with its powdered perfume,and just as you feel you are
The Baseball Lesson in August Wilson’s Fences Baseball can teach you the cruelest of lessons, just like America.Josh Gibson could hit farther and better than any ballplayerThere ever was, white or black.Better than even Babe Ruth,And certainly Jackie Robinson, but it don’t matter,Because America is as unfair as a broken foul pole. I done see
Safe On my way to the obstetricianI pass a street of venders.Sparkling jewels reflect Soho light,hand-knitted hatsparade without heads,art set up like an obstacle courseon the sidewalk. One tabledisplays a collection of onesiesand infant rock tees. Marleypuffs in the center of one, next toJoplin, her mouth wide open.I eye Dylan, his rainbow hairwild as Medusa’s
“Safe” and “The Line” Read More »
Last Christmas, I was having coffee one morning with a friend at Starbucks. We hadn’t seen one another in a while and our conversation was involved. Suddenly, someone approached our table. I immediately recognized her as a woman who is a member of the same fitness center in thesame strip mall where the Starbucks is
Do you need what I need? Read More »
The Road I have nothing to say to the man at the cross in the road. My fingers are loose at my sides; I will not point to the flowering thorn in his right hand or the black-rotting pear in his left. He knows my name; let him keep it. Let him eat his own
“The Road”, “Left”, and “We Were Wives” Read More »
Mother loved a good dichotomy. That’s how it seemed to the child. In her blue dress she was sedate and nurturing. Bedtime stories that would lull the child to sleep were chosen. Wrapped in her red shawl she was fierce and protective. Terrifying tales were told that were designed to excite into exhaustion. In summer
In Winter with Warm Tears Read More »
“I always knew my grandmother loved me. She saved me, gave me any confidence I have today, and her chocolate chip cookies were the best,” says my friend. Grandparents are a group of unsung heroes who deserve a standing ovation. Their impact is profound, their presence is a soothing balm, and their wisdom is increasingly
Superheroes in Sensible Shoes Read More »
Birth of the Blues Was it Miles Davis’ “Kinda Blue” bringing me home to you? Or the musical memories of our mutual histories? Scott Joplin and Jelly Roll laid back and fingering those piano keys, on an instrument played by Langston Hughes, Bontemps, Zora Neale and Countee Cullen while Black women danced a close sweating
Remembering. A beautiful word. And for the last decade, this was what Kathleen had done more often than during the years when most of her life remained ahead. Perhaps it was this afternoon’s dense fog, the gray whiteness that parched the color from the fresh green spring grass and the newborn leaves studding the oaks,
Reaching for the Moon Read More »
